The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Structural loads are forces applied to a component of a structure or to the structure. Loads cause stress, deformations and displacements in the structures. Assessment of the effects of varying loads is carried out by the methods of load analysis. Load analysis may be performed on any structure subject to varying load conditions.
For example, load analysis of an aircraft is generally performed early and throughout the design cycle of the aircraft. Load data can be generated based on varying flight conditions. The analysis of the data is used to enhance the overall structural design of the aircraft. Typically, the load data can be generated from a variety of sources including Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), wind tunnel, and flight tests. Each source may provide the data in different formats. Different analysis operations may be performed on the data from each source. A variety of tools provide the capability to process the data from a single source according to a subset of analysis operations. Thus, multiple tools are necessary to perform load analysis throughout the design cycle. Using multiple tools provides for inefficiencies in the design process as well as can be costly to maintain. A single tool that combines the varied data and can perform multiple load analysis operations that can be used throughout the design cycle is yet to be provided.